The Two-Way

7:33 am

Thu July 18, 2013

Book News: Globe Theatre Taking 'Hamlet' To Every Nation On Earth

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

The prince of Denmark is going on world tour. The Globe theatre company announced this week that it wants to bring Shakespeare's play to every country on Earth, so it plans to embark on a two-year tour of about 200 nations. The group tweeted that it will set out on April 23, 2014 — the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth — and perform everywhere "from town squares & beaches to national theatres & jungles," (giving Jaques' pronouncement of "All the world's a stage" in As You like It an unusually literal interpretation.) Many countries will see only a single production before the company moves on. Artistic director Dominic Dromgoole toldThe Guardian, "If we're going to do every country in the world it has to be every country, we're not going to leave anyone out. All the 'Stans, South and North Korea — we're very keen to get into North Korea."

Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has written about U.S. surveillance practices based on documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden, is writing a book. According to publisher Metropolitan Books, Greenwald's book will show "the extraordinary cooperation of private industry and the far-reaching consequences of the government's [surveillance] program, both domestically and abroad."

NPR contributor Glen Weldon reports from San Diego's Comic-Con: "I'm hoping that all that aforementioned research will help me bring a wider historical context to my coverage of the con for NPR. Oh, there'll be photos of cosplayers, never fear. Trust me, I'll be the Tom Joad of hot dudes in spandex. ('Wherever there is a bare-chested Hawkman, you will find me... Wherever there is Kraven the Hunter, I'll be there.' ")

Jessica Roake reviews a new book about Orson Welles for The Millions: "Whether or not to read Peter Biskind's My Lunches with Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles is simply decided: do you care, at all, about continuing to admire Orson Welles as an actual person and artist, or are you happy to have that illusion exploded by a sad, embittered caricature performing great feats of persona for a sycophant with a hidden tape recorder?"

The west Sussex cottage where William Blake wrote his poem "Milton" is up for sale for a cool £650,000 (about $988,000). The real-estate listing describes it as "[a] most picturesque 17th Century brick and flint period cottage," but the best advertisement might come from Blake himself in the text of "Milton": "For when Los joind with me he took me in his firy whirlwind / My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeths shades / He set me down in Felphams Vale & prepard a beautiful / Cottage for me that in three years I might write all these Visions / To display Natures cruel holiness."